Mutually Prickly Introverts
by Leo of Nohr
Summary: Modern AU: When Takumi got his German exchange partner, he wasn't expecting someone as socially inept as Leo. He also wasn't expecting that his response to Takumi's Japanese-speaking siblings to be to just speak French instead of English or German. In other words, they hate each other, but damn it, Leo is kind of attractive.
1. Chapter 1

Takumi had always been good at languages. He supposed it came with the territory and all, but he felt like it was something he was actually good at, and it was something that his other siblings wouldn't automatically best him at as soon as they picked it up. He could speak fluent English and Japanese, naturally, and he was pretty decent at German, too. Which was useful, seeing as he had his German exchange student coming to stay with him. Ever since he'd started German he'd put so much effort into it, and it seemed to be paying off, because his exchange hadn't once had to correct his German. He hadn't had to correct the boy's English, either, which was nice because he didn't like being forced to spend time with stupid people.

The boy's name was Leo, which Takumi didn't think sounded very German. But he was hardly one to judge- his own name wasn't exactly English, and he was supposed to be the English half of this exchange. He wondered how his exchange partner pronounced his name, and whether he'd have to find a creative way to say 'Leo' wrong. Lao was always a sound option, but if he was German then that might just be how it was pronounced. Oh, well. He'd find out soon enough, because it wasn't long until Leo (Lao) was coming to stay with him. Only a few days, now. Ryoma had planned all the meals that they were going to eat while he was here, and Hinoka had arranged a few days out with him and her and Sakura. He hoped that Leo liked museums, because Sakura had a thing for dinosaurs at the moment and Hinoka had decided it was high time to go to the Natural History Museum. Takumi preferred military history, but there was no way he could go to a museum like that with a German kid. Their history topic was bad enough at the moment. He hoped Leo didn't try to ask him about that. There would hopefully be plenty of less awkward things to talk about, although Takumi wasn't exactly the best at making conversation in person. Emailing Leo was just about alright, but in person Takumi would probably revert to his usual grumpy self.

Ryoma had already told him to be pleasant, but it just wasn't as easy as turning that kind of thing on or off. He just didn't like people. He didn't like talking to people ever, especially not strangers, and he didn't imagine that Lao would be any exception. He'd just have to wait and see. Maybe he'd end up being so grumpy that Leo wouldn't let him come and stay with him in Germany. Now, that would be something interesting to explain to his teachers.

He'd confessed his fears to his friends, and Hinata had simply said 'nah mate, it's okay', but he could say stuff like that because he was bad at German. Oboro had said that it didn't matter and exchanges weren't that important, but Spanish didn't even have an exchange, for whatever reason. His friends just didn't understand. He was going to mess everything up with Leo, probably, and it was all going to be a disaster. And he didn't even have the option to back out of it at this point. Leo had to come and stay here for a whole week and then he had to go back and live with Leo and his family for a whole week and honestly, Takumi had never been so terrified in his life. Not even six months ago after...that. Not even a few days later when they'd had to go and sort everything out. That hadn't been anywhere near as bad as this.

He spent the days leading up to the exchange barely talking to anyone, choosing instead to sulk in his room. Leo emailed him several times to confirm the details of everything they would be doing, and Takumi had to do his best to respond in a reasonably civil manner. He hated feeling shit like this and sulking in his room, because it meant he couldn't do half of the things he actually enjoyed. All he would do was read. Read, read, do homework, and then continue to read. It didn't end. He loved reading, but sitting inside and doing it all day when the temperature was still decent (for England, at least) made him sort of sad and it grated on his nerves. But leaving his room meant having an obligation to talk to Ryoma or Hinoka or Sakura, but the latter was less of a chore. At least his younger sister wouldn't nag him about making sure everything was alright for Leo when he arrived. The most Sakura would do was ask him a few innocent questions, but he could handle that.

And so the evening came when they were set to arrive, and Takumi was so nervous. He'd had to skip his formal archery practise to come and pick Leo up and it was setting him on edge. That was the only time in a week that he would have been able to relax and Leo had taken it away from him. Ryoma said it would be rude for Takumi to get his siblings to pick Leo up, so he'd refused to drive him to the practise. It wasn't fair, but none of this had been very fair so far. Takumi sat moodily in the back of the car, torn between being angry at Leo and being worried that everything was going to go wrong.

Sakura was here too because she 'wanted to meet him'. Takumi didn't get that, she'd meet him like fifteen minutes later anyway. Oh well, he wasn't going to refuse the moral support she was offering in her passive way of doing so. He liked Sakura, she didn't make a fuss about things. She was there, she did her thing, and then she left if you wanted her to. She was almost as bad at talking to people as he was, and objectively she was worse, but at least people still liked Sakura when she was done stuttering through a conversation. People always hated him.

The coach full of German students was already there when their car pulled up, and most of them seemed to have already gone. Only a few people were left, standing around in small groups. One boy was sat off to the side, perching on his suitcase with arms folded and a look in his eyes like he wanted to kill something. He smiled when he saw Takumi, though, however faintly it was. "Hello," he said, and the first thing Takumi thought was that his English accent was so white British he could have stepped into a BBC studio and been at home.

"Hi," he said, catching his usual greeting for now. Leo wouldn't have a hope in hell if he spouted Japanese at him. "I'm Takumi."

"Leo." Well. That solved the problem of how to pronounce his name. It wasn't anything weird like Lao, which was good. "You took your time getting here, Takumi."

"I'm sorry, that's my fault," Ryoma said, jumping in immediately to cover for him. It had been Takumi's fault, he hadn't wanted to come and he'd argued and held them up. "We live quite far away, you see, and it took longer than I thought it would."

"Alright." Leo didn't smile or give any other sort of sign that he'd accepted the excuse. Instead, he wandered over to the car and opened the door. "Are we leaving now? I haven't eaten since this morning."

"I'm Ryoma," Ryoma said, to introduce himself. He looked a little put out at Leo's bluntness that verged on being rude, but Takumi didn't know why, because he complained about HIM being rude all the time because he liked to get to the point. "Takumi, what was Hinoka making for dinner?"

"I don't know, I wasn't listening. Sort of had other stuff on my mind, you know?" Takumi got into the car next to Leo, trying to ignore the fact that Leo had sat in the seat he normally used.

"Well, this is going to be delightful," Ryoma said, and Takumi presumed that Leo caught the sarcasm, because he snorted. Ryoma started the car and started to drive back home, and Takumi suddenly realised that Leo hadn't had any lunch.


	2. Chapter 2

Leo looked decidedly unimpressed when he got out of the car outside Takumi's house. He even went so far as to sigh and fold him arms in boredom, although the casual look of it was somewhat ruined by the sudden growling of his stomach.

"Perhaps we should get you some food," Takumi suggested, hoping that he hadn't done anything wrong yet.

"Okay," Leo said, and he sounded just as unimpressed as he had looked, but Takumi knew that he was hungry. It was obvious that he was, and there was no hiding it through feigned indifference at everything.

Sakura opened the door almost the moment Ryoma rang the doorbell. "Kon'nichiwa," she said, and Takumi very almost laughed at the way that Leo's head shot up from where he was looking at his feet.

"What did she say?" Leo frowned, clearly racking his brains to figure out where in all of his English lessons he had missed out on what must surely be only a very basic greeting. "I've never learned that before..."

"Oh, um, h-hi!" Sakura waved, blushing. "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry, Sakura," Takumi said. "It's Japanese, Leo, not English." Leo just nodded, but he still looked a little confused. Takumi thought that was sort of strange; Leo's English was impeccable.

"Why are you speaking Japanese? Have I somehow ended up on the wrong exchange entirely?" Leo shot Takumi an accusing glare, as if it was somehow his fault that his parents were from Japan.

"No, no, we all speak English, just...not at home," Takumi said. He was starting to worry that Leo was going to be a dick about his first language not being English. All four of them were fluent, probably far more fluent than he was, he couldn't just be a dick about it.

"I see," he said. Takumi felt like he was being snubbed. "Well...is there any food? Sorry, but I haven't eaten since about half past seven this morning."

Takumi silently wondered if Leo was always this grumpy, or if it was just because he was hungry. "Didn't you have lunch?" He asked. The only time he'd ever gone without food was just after That happened and his whole family was in a mess and no one had the time or the energy to make lunch.

"No. Being on a coach full of my classmates for a full day put me off my food," Leo said disdainfully. "You can't have an intelligent conversation with any of them, it's quite disturbing really." Takumi suddenly felt like he was being confronted with his egotistical phase that he went through when he was about twelve and he was starting to feel quite embarrassed for Leo. He was making a fool of himself.

"I just can't wait until I have to be on a coach with all of my classmates," he said, groaning and trying to sympathise with the point of view Leo had. Honestly, he'd just eat more if he was left to deal with all of them.

"There are exactly two of them that I can actually stand," Leo continued, wandering further into the house. Takumi wanted to tell him to take his shoes off, but that would probably seem rude. "I'm lucky that they were both with me, but even Odin's poetry can't distract me from the idiocy of everyone else."

"Ah, y-you need to take your sh-shoes off." Sakura, thankfully, did it for him, and to Takumi's surprise, Leo actually listened and took his shoes off, though he didn't apologise for treading German dirt into the carpet.

"Who's Odin?" Takumi would have commented that Leo's friend shared his name with a Norse god, but with the way Leo was acting, Takumi wouldn't have been surprised if he claimed that his friend was the real Norse god.

"My friend," he said. "We're all doing a meet up, yes? You'll meet him at some point. He's the loud one." Takumi wondered if 'loud one' meant loud like Hinata or loud in some other, more German way. "And there's Niles, but everything about Niles is better left to the imagination."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Takumi tilted his head to the side in curiosity, his imagination already running a little wild as he tried to figure out the meaning behind Leo's words.

"If you ask him to clarify his actions, he only makes himself more suspicious," Leo said, and Takumi was immediately wary about letting someone whose friend described him like that in a serious way near Sakura.

"Okay," he said, trying not to show Leo how alarmed he was. "Hinoka, how long until dinner?"

"Not too long," she assured him. "The soup's nearly ready. Sorry it's not anything more fancy, I couldn't be bothered to do much cooking today. Hope you like tomato soup, Leo."

Leo nodded, and if it wouldn't have ruined his disaffected image, Takumi would have said that he looked almost excited at the thought of the food. "I'll show you where you'll be sleeping so you can put your bag down," Takumi said.

He led Leo upstairs and into his room, gesturing to the mattress and blankets that had been neatly arranged on the floor. "There isn't enough space for you to have your own room, sorry." Takumi wasn't sure why he was apologising. If Leo didn't like this, he could damn well sleep in the garden.

"It's fine," he said, but it was pretty obvious that he didn't want to sleep on the floor. "I know that four kids doesn't leave much space in a house. I have three siblings." Again, Takumi marvelled at how fluent Leo's English was. He'd heard only a little about Leo's siblings before, during the awkward 'getting to know each other' phase of their emailing. Apparently his older sister was in charge of things more than his father was. That had been before It happened, just, and since Then he'd gone silent for a couple of weeks before picking up talking to Leo again like nothing had happened. He hoped Leo wouldn't ask any questions.

"Our house isn't very big," Takumi admitted with a slightly breathless laugh. He felt awkward and like Leo was judging his every movement. "We don't have any spare rooms." Well, they did, but it wasn't being used any time soon.

"I noticed," Leo said drily, glancing in a highly judgemental manner around Takumi's bedroom. "I hope you don't snore or anything, because I don't sleep very well and noises like that would disturb me." Well, this was going to be awkward, because there hadn't been a night in the last four years where Takumi hadn't woken up due to a horrific nightmare.

"Don't worry," he said, "Ryoma is the one who snores like a walrus." It was true, as true as anything, and Takumi forever remembered the awful camping trips where he had to share an area with Ryoma, but it didn't make it any less of a problem that he was probably going to wake Leo up every other night because of his stupid brain not sleeping properly.

"Well, I won't ask to share with your brother any time soon." Leo sighed. "Is there much to do around here? You said you'd planned activities, but you never said what. And this place looks extremely boring so far."

"Your school will have planned stuff," Takumi said, "but we're going to London tomorrow to see a couple of museums." He still wanted to go to a proper history museum that wasn't about science and stuff, but he was sure that if he suggested something to Leo, it would be shot down.

"I learned about London's museums in school," Leo said curiously. "Which ones are we visiting? Personally, I'm interested in natural history, but you don't seem the type for that. Correct me if I am wrong, of course."

"I like military history," Takumi admitted, "but we are going to the natural history museum, actually, because Sakura loves it." Leo smiled then, which was a really weird sight. Maybe he knew that his smile was creepy and that's why he was grumpy all the time?

"Yūshoku no junbi ga dekite!" Hinoka called, and Leo looked to him with an expression of pure confusion.

"Dinner's ready," he translated, laughing.

"Can you tell your siblings to stop speaking Japanese while I'm around?" Grumpy Leo was back in full force. "It's hard enough dealing with English, don't go throwing a whole new language at me on top of that."

"Tafu tawagoto," Takumi said with a grin. Seeing Leo so annoyed was incredibly satisfying. "I'm not going to ask your siblings to stop speaking their first language."

Leo smiled then, and simply followed Takumi to the bathroom to wash his hands. "Am I allowed to ask what you said then, or was it something horribly offensive that I really shouldn't be hearing?" He raised an eyebrow, fixing Takumi with a searching look. "I really wouldn't be surprised if you just swore at me. Most people do it all the time."

"I did," he said. No point hiding something like that, just in case Leo decided to repeat it in front of Sakura to ask someone else to translate. "I said tough shit, but don't take it personally."

Needless to say, the meal they had together was a little tense. They sat around the table, Sakura too shy to say anything in front of Leo, Takumi too damn aggravated by his attitude to talk to him. Ryoma attempted to make conversation, but when the only person replying was Hinoka, it became pointless. At least Leo seemed to like the food.

Takumi was glad when Leo excused himself to go to the toilet towards the end of the meal. He let out a long sigh and rested his head against the table. "How am I going to deal with him for a week?"


	3. Chapter 3

After the meal, the four of them started with their usual evening routine: persuading Sakura to go to bed at a sensible time for a nine year old. She'd always taken exception to having a different bedtime to her siblings, especially Takumi, even though he was six damn years older than her.

Hinoka had college work to do, so she shut herself in her room for the evening, and Ryoma was busy sorting out adult things that Takumi had no wish to be lectured about. That, however, meant that he was left alone with Leo until they were both tired enough to sleep.

"Didn't you get up pretty early today?" Takumi asked. "We're getting up early tomorrow so you should probably sleep."

"I'm not tired," Leo said, rooting around in his suitcase for something. From what he knew of Leo, it was probably some vaguely pointy object that he could threaten Takumi with. Or, as it turned out to be, a thick book written in German that looked both old and mind-numbingly dull. Of course Leo would be the type of person to read books like that. He probably read encyclopaedias for fun.

"Chikushō," Takumi said, intentionally not saying it in a language Leo could understand. Leo didn't even look up from his boring German book, so Takumi got the book he was reading off his bedside table. Back to exactly what he'd been doing when waiting for Leo to get here, it seemed.

He managed to read for all of ten minutes before getting bored. "Come on, Leo, isn't there anything else you'd rather do? If I have to have you here for a whole week, you could at least make an effort to talk to me."

"I don't have to," he said. "You don't want to talk to me, I don't want to talk to you." It was true, of course, but that didn't mean that Ryoma would be any less disappointed in him. He'd wanted Takumi to be nice to Leo at all times and he'd even said that he'd hoped they would become friends, seeing as they'd gotten on quite well over email.

"How do you know I don't want to talk to you?" Takumi glanced around, struggling to find something that he could possibly ask about. "Um...what are you reading? It looks...interesting...?"

Leo snorted. "No it doesn't. You don't even know what it is." Takumi looked again at the cover and managed to work it out.

"It's a chess strategy book," he said. Boring. Chess was dull and no one had ever been willing to teach it to him properly as a child. His mother had taught him how to play shogi, but none of his siblings had ever wanted to learn. "I don't know how to play chess, sorry."

Leo looked like he had been personally slighted by those words. "You don't know how to play chess?"

"It isn't a game I've ever been around," Takumi admitted. Judging from Leo's facial expression, Takumi had to wonder if he was going to pull a full-size chess set out of his arse and insist that Takumi learn to play it with him. Hmm. Maybe that was why he was so grumpy- having something like that stuck up there would be enough to put anyone in a bad mood.

Much to his surprise, however, the chess set didn't come from Leo's butt, but it came, in fact, from the depths of his bag. Trust Leo to bring a stupid chess set in his bag. Who even played chess when they went on an exchange trip anyway?

"I'm going to teach you to play." Leo set it down on the mattress in front of him, pointing over at where he wanted Takumi to sit. "And you're going to like it. I promise." His words sounded more like a threat than a promise, but Takumi wisely chose not to comment. "Okay," he said, setting the pieces out in a line along the board. "This is a pawn. From the start, you can move it forwards by one or two, and after that only one. It can take other pieces, but only diagonally." And he went on like that for what must have been hours, in Takumi's perception. Chess wasn't exactly boring, but it was damn complicated. He was half sure that all these rules were going in one ear and out the other, and when Leo finally suggested that they play a proper game, Takumi had to hold back a groan. "I'll let you play with the white pieces," Leo offered, sounding as if he was being incredibly generous. "White moves first, so technically you get a slight advantage."

And so they played chess. Briefly, because Leo beat him within about ten minutes. Probably less, Takumi just decided it was ten because it hurt his pride slightly less. "You're not awful for a beginner," Leo said, and Takumi felt like that was the biggest compliment that had ever left Leo's mouth. Ever.

"You're probably pretty good at it," he said, not wanting to sound like he was too impressed by the level of precision of Leo's setups. Leo might get an even larger head if he gave a direct compliment.

"I am. I play for my school, I've won regional tournaments." Leo gave a smug smile. "I am going to be playing in a national tournament in the summer, so it's important that I practise as much as possible. And even beating a beginner like you counts as practise."

It seemed that Leo didn't need compliments from other people to inflate his ego. Apparently he could just do it with his own compliments. "That's cool," he said, trying not to sound too impressed. "I compete in national archery tournaments."

"Oh? Have you ever won?" Leo propped his head on his hands, looking vaguely interested. "Do you have your bow at home? I'd like to see it- I mean, it would be sort of cool. I guess."

"Yes, I won last year, and this year's is in a couple of months, just before I come to Germany," he said, gently pushing the chess board away so he could get up to get his bow. "You'll have to come outside to see it, it's in the shed in the garden, mum never, um, she never lets, let me have it in the house. Um."

"I haven't seen my mother for five years," Leo said, being incredibly insensitive.

Takumi wanted to comment in return, but he didn't feel like going through all of that this evening. "Hmm," was all he said instead. Then, "Why not? Is she dead?" He figured that Leo would probably be over it if it had been five years. Leo had probably been over it after five minutes.

"She left," he shrugged. "Maybe she's dead, I don't care. She abandoned us when my little sister was four and she never came back." And he was left with a father who Leo never ever talked about, a four year old sister, a brother who 'preserves sensibility over sense', maybe literature was something else they could talk about, and a sister who now runs the household, but at the time she couldn't have been that old.

"Hmm. Okay." Takumi didn't question any further, even though he was insanely curious. He only hoped that Leo didn't ask about Takumi's mother, now. "Um...anyway...do you still want to see my bow?"

"I guess," Leo said, which meant yes, because he'd never admit to actually wanting something that Takumi could provide. It was sort of hard to dislike him when he wasn't being outwardly rude.

"Okay, but we have to be quiet, Sakura is sleeping." Probably, if she wasn't reading about medicine or whatever nerd stuff she did when no one else was looking.

"Alright." Leo stood up, making his way to Takumi's door on surprisingly stealthy feet. Takumi followed, leading the way quietly down the stairs and out through the kitchen towards the back door. Ryoma was still up in the living room, looking half asleep and reading something that seemed important. If he noticed Leo and Takumi, he didn't comment on it.

Takumi opened the shed door with a little more ceremony than was necessary. "This is mine," he said, indicating his bow. He realised now that it probably looked a tiny bit silly, because it had been painted gold and blue. He liked it this way. "It's called the Fujin Yumi, it means holy bow."

"That sounds like a name my friend Odin would come up with," Leo said, smiling again. He was clearly impressed by the bow, though. Most people were. It was large, and beautiful, if Takumi said so himself. He was the one who had customised it to actually look nice, unlike the cheap crappy plastic bows that half the people he knew used. He loved it, it was his single favourite thing that he owned.

"It's very important to me," Takumi said firmly. He walked over to his bow, running a gentle hand along the curve of it. He would never let any harm come to his precious bow. Ever. Leo's chess set was replaceable, he probably had several at home, but this bow was not. "It was really hard to make properly."

"I can see that," Leo said, looking at the bow but not moving to touch it. Takumi was fairly impressed that he knew not to. "My friend Niles is interested in archery, but I think he does it just so he can make corny jokes."

Judging from what Takumi had heard so far of this Niles, he was not going to be allowed within ten metres of his precious bow. Neither was Odin- he seemed the type to pick it up and wave it around whilst spouting rubbish about how good it looked.

"Should we try and go to sleep now?" Takumi asked, putting the bow away carefully. "London is pretty far away and Hinoka wants to leave before ten." Leo nodded, so they both went back inside. Ryoma was gone by this point, probably to the makeshift study in the corner of his bedroom, but they tried to be quiet anyway.

Perhaps Leo wasn't SO bad, Takumi found himself thinking. He was arrogant and could absolutely be obnoxious an awful lot of the time, but he was interesting. And he knew not to touch Takumi's bow, which was pretty important.

And when Takumi woke up at two in the morning, Leo might have been staring at him as he tried to calm down, but no comments were made about it, so maybe he wasn't that bad at all.


	4. Chapter 4

The Natural History Museum wasn't as bad as Takumi had thought it might be. Leo already seemed to know everything that there possibly was to know about plants, and enthusiastically told Takumi about many of them. His accent got stronger when he was excited, and it was kind of sweet in a way. Not that Takumi found Leo sweet, of course. Not at all. He was still an obnoxious arse. That said, he had started actually being nice, and he'd helped Takumi start to teach Sakura how to play chess, at her insistence, once she'd learnt that he'd learnt to play chess while she was in bed. Leo had even said thank you to Hinoka for buying all of them lunch, which honestly blew him away. He didn't realise that Leo was capable of showing gratitude without it doing serious damage to his pride.

Leo bought a book about plants from the museum gift shop when it was time to leave, and promptly buried his nose in it the moment that they got into the car. He seemed very happy to simply be left alone to read, aside from occasionally nudging Takumi to share facts about plants with him. Takumi didn't understand how he could read in a car, honestly, because he always got sick when he tried to read in the car, even though he loved reading possibly just as much as Leo did. And Leo clearly loved reading a lot.

"C-can you read entirely in- in English?" Sakura asked, looking over at Leo, who was still reading the book.

"Pretty well," Leo said, shutting his book for a moment to answer the question. "A little slower than I would read in a language I am fluent in, but fairly well nonetheless." He even managed a small smile at Sakura, which she shyly returned.

"You're really s-smart," she said. "Takumi is r-really good at German, too."

"Really?" Leo looked over at Takumi and raised his eyebrows. "I haven't heard him speak it." Takumi rolled his eyes at him.

"Of course I can speak German," he said. "That's why I'm doing the exchange."

"Hmm. I suppose. Are you as good at it as your sister says you are?" Takumi probably wasn't. He was decent, but Leo seemed to be pretty much fluent in English, even if he claimed he wasn't.

"Mein Deutsch ist okay, aber ich übe nicht oft," he said. "Es macht mehr Sinn als Englisch!"

"Ja," Leo laughed. "Englisch ist compliziert und die Grammatik ist unzuverlässig."

"What are you two saying back there?" Hinoka laughed, looking around at them. "Not sharing anything rude, I hope?"

"No, nothing like that," Takumi promised. "Just saying that German makes more sense than English. Which it does."

"I don't think anything could make less sense than English, honestly," Hinoka said. "It's a nuisance of a language to learn, especially when I moved here." Hinoka had been thirteen when they'd moved to England, and Takumi remembered that she'd hated going to school almost as much as he did because it was so hard to get through lessons without people making fun of their lack of English skills. Takumi had found it easier to learn because he loved reading books, but Hinoka had struggled for months.

"How long have you lived here?" Leo seemed genuinely curious. "It's hard to adjust to the language of a new country, so you seem to be doing well." He spoke like he knew what he was talking about, although Takumi had never heard him mention living anywhere else.

"Five years," Takumi said. It didn't feel like they'd lived in England for very long at all, and he still had to teach people how to pronounce his name and then tell them that no, don't greet me like that it's weird and you don't even do that in Japan so don't, and there were all the English things that he just didn't understand and never would. And there was so much more of the stupid language to learn, he hated it. But all the same, he liked living in this country. The air was fresher and there was more of a life for him here now. Ryoma had a job that could support them and Hinoka had her exams and he had his and Sakura was popular and everyone liked her even though she'd never gotten over the shyness she'd found on moving here.

"Quite a while, then," Leo said. Takumi nodded, and Leo didn't say any more than that. They fell into silence until they arrived home, but it seemed a little more comfortable than the awkward silence that there had been when the two of them had first met.

When they got back home, Leo wasted no time in asking for the wifi password, which Takumi didn't mind about. He'd want the password to talk to his friends and family if he was there with a complete stranger, or almost complete stranger. "I need to talk to my little sister," Leo explained. "She said she wanted to hear from me every day because she was going to miss me." That was sweet, and Takumi hoped that Sakura would feel the same when he was away in a couple of months.

"How old is your sister?" He asked.

"Elise is ten," Leo said, looking down at his phone as he was clearly composing a message. "She's sweet. I miss her a little already, so I hope she's okay." He sounded a little more concerned than Takumi thought the situation called for, but he wasn't going to judge. He wouldn't ask questions either, it wasn't fair. He didn't like people asking questions about his family when he was worried about them. Then again, that was mostly because of what happened Then, but he didn't know. Maybe Leo's sister was ill and could die. He didn't know, and it wasn't his place to pry.

"She sounds nice." Takumi waited whilst Leo wrote his email or whatever it was, scuffing his foot against the floor as he waited. "Um, do you want to do anything else together? It's a while until dinner, so..."

"I need to let Odin know I'm still alive, too," Leo chuckled at the thought, and Takumi started to imagine what Hinata would be like if he wasn't contacted in the space of twelve hours that weren't in the middle of the night. He'd probably freak out and Takumi would pick up his phone to sixteen missed calls and lots of texts and messages and emails. "But I'd like to play chess again, if you don't mind."

"Yeah. I wouldn't mind that." Takumi wanted to get good enough to last at least twenty moves without Leo beating him this time. Perhaps he could even take a couple of Leo's pieces before he inevitably got destroyed.

He took two pieces, apparently opening up for Leo's attack, but he'd tried. It was still satisfying to have taken a couple of the pieces though, and he definitely wanted to play more so he could get better at it and maybe eventually beat Leo, though that would be a bonus that seemed almost impossible to achieve.

Leo offered to try and teach him some better strategies, then, and Takumi accepted. They all seemed way too complicated for a player as casual as him, but at least Leo was enjoying explaining them to him. It was a nice change to see grumpy Leo actually enjoying himself. Even when they were in the museum today, it had been a matter of leaving him to do things on his own, letting him read everything at his own pace and not pushing him to speed up or anything. Takumi wouldn't have been surprised if he'd gotten out a notebook at one point and started taking notes; it seemed like a very Leo thing to do, but he didn't do it.

They talked about chess all the way through dinner, much to Ryoma's amusement, and then they talked about history after dinner. After the initial 'are we okay to talk about the world wars', to which Takumi said 'Germany and Japan were on the same side in the second one, we're okay to talk about the world wars', they couldn't be stopped from talking for literal hours. It was eleven o'clock before Ryoma came in with a comment on how they'd been laughing about French military tactics for ten minutes and they had to go to school tomorrow so they should probably sleep.

They stayed up whispering for another hour before they finally decided that they were too tired to stay awake. Takumi slept soundly that night and didn't wake once.


	5. Chapter 5

When they went into school that Monday, Takumi had to drop Leo off at the meeting point for all the exchange students. They were going to see some local monuments or something of the sort, nothing particularly interesting, but it seemed that Leo was still excited about it, the nerd. This was when Takumi met Leo's friends, who were next to each other at the very edge of the huddle of German students who were commiserating over the strangeness of their English exchange partners and how they drank tap water and didn't eat sandwiches after dinner.

"Der tolle Nerd naht!" The one that was probably called Odin announced as soon as he caught sight of Leo. Takumi snorted.

"You have lovely friends," he commented. "That's Odin, right?" He certainly seemed dramatic enough to be Odin. And the slightly scary-looking one with an eyepatch stood next to him must be Niles.

"Er hat einen Pferdeschwanz!" The slightly scary probably Niles one laughed and it sounded exactly like you would imagine the word 'snigger'.

"Er versteht Deutsch, Niles," Leo frowned at his friend in a way that Takumi could only think of as stern.

"Ah." Niles instead flashed a smile at Takumi, not looking in the least apologetic for his comment. "He DOES have a ponytail."

"'He' can hear you," Takumi said, shooting a glare at Leo's friend. "And 'he' has a name. Takumi."

"Hallo Takumi," Odin waved, despite being a little bit too close to Niles to avoid prodding him in the eyepatch. "Es tut mir leid!" Niles just sighed.

"Odin isn't very good at English," Leo said, a fond tone in his voice. Odin glared at him in just about the same way that Takumi imagined Hinata would glare at him when he was insulted.

"Your friends seem...nice?" Takumi honestly wasn't quite sure what to make of them both. Odin was still grinning slightly sheepishly, and Niles was giving Takumi a look that made him highly uncomfortable. He shifted on the spot, attempting to smile back at both of them.

"You could say that, but you'd be lying," Leo said. "They're both arses. You should probably go to your lessons, I need to sort these two out."

"Sure..." He said, unsure of what to do next. Did he just walk away? Would it look rude if all he did was leave? He didn't know. "Sayōnara, kyūtī!" He grinned at Leo's confusion and left him standing there, trying to explain to his friends what his exchange partner just said.

He didn't know why he'd just said that. Leo wasn't even cute, he was egotistical and didn't need compliments. But he'd said it anyway, and for some reason he didn't regret it.

Takumi found himself thinking about Leo a lot during the day- perhaps slightly more than he'd thought he might. Or a lot more. He wondered how he was enjoying the tour of the city, if he was explaining to his friends about the monuments in the same excited tone he'd used to tell Takumi about plants at the museum yesterday.

Even Hinata noticed that his mind was a bit off, and he'd asked if his exchange partner was as weird as his and had put him off learning. On further investigation, Hinata's exchange partner was Odin, and Takumi started to wonder if either of them could understand each other for more than a few basic sentences and random words. It was also a very funny coincidence that their partners had ended up being friends, and it was nice. Hinata said that Odin had spent the weekend shut in the spare bedroom unless it was otherwise necessary to go anywhere, and he'd been heard reading poetry out loud in German. Takumi wasn't surprised.

He assured Hinata that no, his partner wasn't TOO weird (apart from the plants and the chess and the funny black headband he always wore), and that he must just have not slept too well. That wasn't true, he'd slept better than he had for a long time, but Takumi didn't want to consider any other possible explanations for his lack of focus. He could not consider that maybe for the first time he had a...nope. No, he didn't, he was fine, there was nothing wrong, him and Leo were just becoming friends, that was all. Nothing else. Nothing else at all.

The coach full of exchange students arrived back at school at the end of the day, and Takumi spotted Leo talking enthusiastically to his friends, presumably about what they'd seen during the day. Niles was pretending to look interested, even though his attention was clearly elsewhere (discreetly looking at one of the girls on the exchange) and Odin was talking back to Leo even more enthusiastically, only with more dramatic hand gestures and jumping around.

"Hi Takumi," Leo waved at him and Takumi ignored the soft feeling in his chest. "And are you Henata?" Hinata burst into a fit of giggles, and Leo frowned.

"It's Hinata," Takumi said quietly, and Leo just nodded, still looking a little annoyed at being laughed at for his lack of ability to pronounce Hinata's name first try. "Did you have a good time today?"

"I did! London has so many great things to see, I need to come here again some time and look around without all of my classmates being here." Leo looked so happy- there was a sort of sparkle in his eyes that make Takumi need to smile too.

"That's good," Takumi said. He'd always found London a little bit boring, at least for the last few years, when they were no longer tourists and they were just people who lived here like anyone else. "I can't believe that our friends got matched together, honestly."

Leo looked over at where Odin was trying desperately to explain something to Hinata entirely through gestures and a few sparse English and German words that made no sense when put together, and he laughed.

"They seem to be having a worse time of it than we are," Leo remarked. "I guess I was lucky to be paired with someone who pays attention in their German lessons."

"Yeah." Takumi felt a slight heat rise in his cheeks, although he wasn't sure why. "Um...do you know who Niles got paired with? I kinda feel sorry for whoever it is." Definitely time for a change of subject.

"Oh, he said that he's staying away from them as much as possible," Leo said. "Thankfully, he has enough sense to only be rude to people who aren't feeding him and giving him somewhere to sleep for a week." Takumi looked over to where Niles was standing, and even though he didn't know Niles very well, he could see that the awkward way he was standing and the not smug grin on his face were out of place. "It's strange, they're a rich family and he's not even insulting them."

"Hmm." Takumi turned back to Leo. "We should probably head home, Ryoma will worry if I'm not back at the usual time." He reached over, catching Leo's arm for a brief moment to pull him in the right direction. It must have been his imagination, but he could have sworn he saw a faint blush on Leo's face.

"How do you get back normally?" Leo asked. Hinoka could take them in the morning on the way to college, but she stayed later and Ryoma worked pretty constantly from home and was often in call based meetings.

"Oh, oops, I didn't tell you," Takumi said. "I get a lift with one of my friends, she's said you can come as well because I have no other way to get home." Oboro had said that Leo sounded like a 'nerd arse', but she'd wait until meeting him to fully pass judgement.

"Alright." Leo followed Takumi as he went to go find Oboro, walking closer than he had done before. Takumi chose not to comment on it, because he didn't exactly mind. Friends walked close to each other, that was just a thing that friends did. Perfectly normal.

And okay, it was pretty nice that there was only so much space in the car for them, so he was kind of squashed up against Leo. Actually, it wasn't that nice, because Leo had been in a hot coach with a bunch of teenagers for half a day, and there was sort of a stale smell in the air, but Takumi didn't mind all that much.

"Do you want to play another game of chess?" Takumi had to ask that as soon as they got home- he wanted an excuse to spend more time alone with his friend. "I think I'm getting better at it. Maybe I'll manage to beat you before you have to leave."

"You keep telling yourself that," Leo said, laughing. "You can try, but I've been playing for years." Because of this, Leo beat him again. And again. But Takumi did feel like he was getting a little better at this.

After his third pretty much crushing loss in a row, he gave up. "Who do you think you are, Leo, a genius?"

"Yes," came the answer. Immediately. There wasn't even any damn hesitation. Honestly, he probably wasn't even wrong. But that didn't mean that Takumi had to LIKE it.

"Being good at chess doesn't make you a genius, it just makes you a nerd."

"No, I am a genius," Leo said, grinning slightly. "I'm also a nerd, as you so eloquently put it, but I am a genius."

"Hmph. If you say so." Takumi knew he was probably right, but Leo's already massive ego didn't need inflating anymore. As nice as that little grin was, it would only get larger and smugger if Takumi complimented him anymore.

"I do," he said, "and so do all my teachers. I'm good at everything in school, except maybe art." Takumi snorted, imagining what kind of stick figures that Leo could conjure up. He wasn't much good at the kind of art his teachers had wanted him to do, but he could paint well.

"I'm good at, um, History. And Literature, sort of," Takumi shot back. He was well aware of what a weak comeback that was. Leo just gave him an infuriatingly smug smile that Takumi REALLY wanted to hate, but he just...couldn't. Leo was so annoying and so egotistical and just so everything that Takumi hated, but he just didn't hate him. He couldn't, and he didn't think he was going to start hating him now.


	6. Chapter 6

By the time the week was coming to an end, Takumi was almost sorry to see Leo go. His company was so different to that of his siblings and even his friends, somehow. He was going to miss Leo, and miss their incredibly one-sided chess games, and miss Leo's enthusiasm over silly things, even if he'd never admit that he'd miss all of that.

"I'll keep talking to you through emails," Leo promised on the morning when he was set to leave. He was being sent off with a large lunch made by Hinoka after Takumi had told her that he didn't think his father had actually given him one for the way to England, even though he'd tried to refuse it. "Let me know how that archery competition goes, for one thing. And we need to play chess online, too."

"I'll definitely let you know. And yes. Absolutely, if you can find a way to do it. I hope you have a good journey back, too, and I hope everything's okay when you get home." If there was anything that Takumi had picked up about Leo's home life, it was that things weren't exactly stable there.

"Me too," Leo said, and he sighed after a moment. Takumi didn't want him to leave. It didn't sound like it was safe for him at home, and he'd said that he liked all the things there were to learn here and all the things he could do when he was bored. He'd also said that none of his siblings ever played chess with him because he always won, so it was hard to get practise against human opponents.

"It's only a couple of months until I come stay with you for a week," Takumi said, trying to sound reassuring. Even as he said that, though, he realised just how long a couple of months really was. Sixty whole days. And after that, he might not see Leo again. Ever. They might not be able to see each other again. And Leo wouldn't have any need to talk to him for school reasons, so he couldn't just keep talking to him. There was no need to, no context, and he wasn't sure if the work oriented Leo ever even talked to his friends outside of the context of school, let alone him.

But he shouldn't think about that, it was silly. Leo was only his exchange partner, it wasn't like they'd been best friends for life or something. He needed to stop worrying about this and concentrate on making sure Leo wasn't late to the coach this morning.

"I guess you should get on now," he said, trying to sound like he wasn't sad about it. "Let me know that you got home safely and stuff, I'm sure Sakura wants to know." He would want to know, but Leo really did not need to know that. Not ever. He couldn't talk about his feelings towards Leo. He was just ignoring them, because that worked and he didn't feel so bad about it when he ignored it.

"I will do." Leo turned to face him, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot in a way that made Takumi wanted to ask if he needed the toilet. He made a sort of gesture that almost looked like he was going for a hug, and then stuck his hand out instead. "I'll see you soon."

"See you," he said, and tried not to watch after him too longingly as he went. He'd be fine on the coach, he had his friends, and he'd be fine at home because he had his siblings. He'd spoken briefly to Elise when she'd asked to talk to him too, and she sounded sweet.

The rest of his day at school passed rather sadly, and Takumi spent most of the time with his head on his desk, not paying much attention to what was being said. At lunch he got a text from Leo, which made him smile for all of five seconds before he went back to being gloomy again. Why was he so upset over his stupid exchange partner? It didn't make SENSE. Leo was just a person. He was a person who was smart and relished in being annoying. He was a person who liked being rude to other people just so they realised how much smarter he was. He was a cute person, even though Takumi couldn't say that to Leo in a way he understood.

He emailed Leo again that evening, and got a response almost immediately, saying that the journey had been fine and that Elise said to say hi and to tell Hinoka that he'd enjoyed the lunch she'd made him. Takumi replied saying that he would, and to say hi back to Elise, and asked Leo if he'd found somewhere that they could play chess online. Leo didn't reply again for the rest of the evening, and Takumi went to bed wondering if he was okay, or if he'd simply forgotten to email back.

Eventually, though, an email came saying 'haha sorry, my dad got mad at my brother and turned the wifi off so he couldn't video call us'. That was a tiny bit worrying, but as long as it wasn't any worse, Takumi didn't mind.

'Is he less mad now?' He asked. 'What did your brother do, bring a boyfriend home? ;)'

'something like that,' came the quick response. 'sorry about my dad. he sucks.' That was putting it lightly from what Takumi had heard, but he figured that Leo was trying to keep the mood light between them. He wondered if Leo missed him just as much as he missed Leo, or if he was the only one feeling the absence.

'I'm pretty excited to come to Germany for my exchange,' he wrote, and then deleted it because it probably sounded clingy. He tried again with 'I thought you said your bro was anti uni dating or something?'

'i'm pretty sure he changed his mind.' It sounded as though there was a story there- Takumi was half tempted to ask about it, but that might be kind of weird.

'Okay. It seems silly to be against dating in school, it's something fun to do instead of schoolwork :),' Takumi wrote, and then sent it without the smiley face because that sounded too much like flirting and he was NOT interested in Leo. Well, he was, but he wasn't going to admit it to him, not ever. He couldn't admit it, it was just too embarrassing to even think about talking about it.

'I suppose so. his boyfriend is pretty cool though, he's english actually.' Takumi's immediate response would be to say that it ran in the family, but joke flirting was almost as bad as real flirting.

'Maybe I'll meet him when I come and stay,' Takumi wrote. Personally, he'd never dated anyone before, although he'd often wondered what it was like. Girls at school didn't seem to look at him very often, except for Oboro, and that was only because the two of them were friends. Although, Takumi supposed, he didn't spend very much time looking at girls, either.

'they both live on campus, in Munich, so it's pretty far away,' Leo said, 'but we can probably call them if my dad ever stops being a homophobic fuck.' Takumi decided that now was a good time to change the subject, before Leo got too angry with his father.

'That would be good. Have you read any nerd books on the way home?' He asked.

'finished reading my chess strategy guide for the twentieth time. picked up a book on the history of london, read that too. you'd like it, I think. you can borrow it when you come.' Takumi smiled at that, because he got the feeling that Leo wasn't one who often shared his possessions with others.

'Was your trip okay?' He knew that the trip was boring and irritating, because Leo's text had read something like 'if I hear this song one more time, kill me', but he was sure that Leo wanted to complain about the specifics if he could. Leo definitely liked complaining as much as possible, that was obvious from even one conversation with him.

'odin didn't shut up for five seconds and one of the girls slapped niles so that was funny,' Leo wrote, and Takumi laughed as he read it. 'apart from that, everyone was terrible. as usual.' And back to complaining again. Typical Leo.

'I'm looking forward to coming to see you in a couple of months, except maybe that trip there and back,' Takumi couldn't stop himself from sending it that time, and he just hoped it didn't seem too weird for Leo. He was sure he'd hear about whether it was rude if Leo thought it was.

He didn't get a response for about half an hour after that, and he was just starting to worry if he'd overstepped a line and made Leo think he was weird when he finally got another email.

'sorry, had to go help elise with something. i'm looking forward to seeing you too :)'


	7. Chapter 7

Takumi heard from Leo several times daily for the next two months. He'd even found a site for them to play chess online together, and Takumi was slowly getting better. According to Leo, he'd even come close to beating him once, although Takumi was half-sure that he was only saying that to make him feel better about losing all the time. Especially seeing as he hadn't even noticed that he'd gotten close to beating Leo, so he wasn't doing it consciously even if he had done it.

He'd also been practising for his competition daily. Archery was his absolute favourite thing and he liked being good at something that his siblings weren't immediately better at him than. But he couldn't just be good, he had to be the best. And if he lost these competitions, he wouldn't be the best.

The night before the competition, he couldn't sleep and Leo stayed up with him, calling him an idiot and assuring him that he was definitely going to win. As odd as Leo's compliments were, they really did help to ease Takumi's nerves. He slept through the day instead, because he really did need to concentrate for the competition, and he couldn't do that if he was half asleep from exhaustion. He just got Ryoma to get him off school for the morning saying that they needed the time to travel, and thankfully his brother understood his difficulty sleeping under stress.

As for the actual competition, Takumi realised he needn't have worried so much. As soon as he got his hands on his bow, everything fell into place and he was as calm as he'd ever been. He took first place easily- as he got home, his first priority was to send Leo a photo of himself smiling with the trophy he'd won.

'well done!' The message came back instantly and Takumi couldn't help but hope that Leo had been waiting for him to get back and see what had happened. 'you should be proud of yourself.' He smiled. He was proud of himself. He was so happy that he was just as good at archery as just about anyone in the area. He wasn't the absolute best, of course, but he was trying to get there.

'Thank you! I've been practising so much, I might have been neglecting my German practise a bit...don't worry, I'll probably remember enough to talk to your family still :)' Takumi grinned as he sent the message- it was only days now until he saw Leo again, and he didn't know how he was going to survive that long, honestly. He'd missed his friend so much, it was ridiculous honestly. He hadn't expected to miss him quite this much, even though he knew he would miss him a bit. Sometimes he thought of Leo and his throat hurt, or his chest hurt, and he'd get sad. It was his chest hurting that happened the most, and it was a feeling he got when he'd think about Leo's smile, or his funny enthusiasm for things, or the little blush that Takumi had seen on him once. He sort of wanted to see it again.

'about that... ;)' Takumi's heart raced when he saw the winky face, even though he mostly wanted to know what Leo meant by his message.

'What do you mean? About that?' He could imagine Leo's smug grin and his laughter, but he sent it anyway.

'nope'

'D:'

':D'

Takumi rolled his eyes and gave up then, telling Leo that he really needed to go to bed, which he did. What he didn't say was that he'd probably spend a good half hour smiling into his pillow thinking about Leo. And thinking about what that winky face could possibly have meant.

As he came to the time when he was going to be going to Germany, he got simultaneously more nervous and more excited. He couldn't wait to see Leo again and that often made him too excited to sleep, but he also often got too _nervous_ to sleep because going to another country and staying with someone who was possibly abusive to his own children was very, very scary.

All of this combined to make him incredibly tired on the day that he was finally due to leave for Germany. He even managed to mess up putting his hair in its usual ponytail, and Sakura giggled and redid it for him after he came down to breakfast looking like a dishevelled horse. Ryoma was busy, but he managed to spare the time to hug Takumi and wish him good luck in Germany, and Hinoka insisted upon driving him to the coach.

"You'll be okay Takumi, I promise," she said. "And you know that if their father is really bad, you can call your teacher and tell them, because that's why you have their number." He knew that. He knew all of this, but he was worried that if he had to get himself out of there, Leo or Elise or Leo's other sister (Camilla, maybe) would take the brunt of the blame and he would be responsible for them getting hurt.

"I know," he said, resting his head against the car window and tiredly watching the grey streets pass by. Hinoka dropped him off at the coach with one last hug and a promise to text him every day, and then Takumi was left alone with his luggage. He went to go find Hinata, sure that his friend would be able to wake him up a little.

He found Hinata half asleep with his head on top of his suitcase. When Takumi approached, his friend looked up and blinked slightly blearily. "Hey Tak," he said, apparently too tired to even finish speaking his name. "'m tired."

"Yeah, me too." Takumi dropped his suitcase on the floor and sat down next to it, mimicking his friend's posture. "You looking forward to Germany?" Hinata just made a sort of noncommittal groan, and Takumi laughed. "How have you and Odin been getting along?"

"Don't think I've messaged him more than twice since he came here, honestly," Hinata looked resigned to his fate. "What if his parents don't speak much English either?"

"His mum is a nurse," Takumi said. He remembered talking about her to Leo because she had apparently extended a quiet, implied offer to Camilla that she would help them get away from their father if they needed to. "She probably speaks a decent amount of English."

"I hope you're right, because my German is terrible." Hinata sighed, burying his face in the suitcase to block out any light. "Lemme know when we're leaving, I'm taking a nap."

Takumi just laughed again, leaving his friend to nap for fifteen minutes until the coach pulled up and everyone had to load their luggage on board. He was closer to nervous than excited now, because he'd been reminded of the cruelty of Leo's father and also that he would now have to spend the next ten hours in the presence of his classmates. Most of them were complete strangers to him despite having been around for a good four years, mostly because when he was eleven he'd been half unable to speak their language and completely unable to tolerate any of them. The only reason he had a friend in Hinata and Oboro was because they recruited him for their 'we hate all these white British people being unable to pronounce our names' club.

The coach journey was just as terrible as Leo had made it sound- people playing loud music and flinging sweets at each other, and a couple of half-hearted sarcastic singalongs of 'the wheels on the bus' that sounded more suited to a group of drunk people than some tired teenagers on a bus. They stopped for lunch, and Takumi texted Leo to let him know how things were going. The near-immediate response was 'at least you're halfway here now, you nerd'.

'I think I'll die before I reach you, do you have an equivalent to the song 'wheels on the bus'?'

'yes, we have that too and I pity you deeply. Stay strong.'

'Thanks, I'll try. See you soon :)'

'not if i see you first'

Takumi didn't text anything else back- Leo liked to have the last word, and Takumi was too tired today to fight him over that. he just smiled before tucking his phone back into his pocket.

"Who're you texting?" Hinata gave him a sideways sort of look. "Never seen you smile like that before."

"Leo," he said, and he could feel his face heating up for no reason. No reason at all, nope, there was no way that he was embarrassed by the implications of what Hinata had just said.

"Hmm," was all his friend said, but it was a judgemental 'hmm', the sort of 'hmm' that meant 'I'm going to be teasing you about this later when I'm not quite so tired, Takumi'.

Takumi chose to ignore the 'hmm', and instead focused on getting back to the coach. Just another five hours of this to go. And then Leo.


	8. Chapter 8

By the time the coach trip came to an end, Takumi was just about ready to denounce coaches for good. It was early evening, and he was tired and hungry and grumpy. But looking out of the coach window as they pulled up into Leo's school, Takumi could see a small crowd of students. And Leo was among them.

He got out of the coach, bleary and with a tired body, and he said goodbye to Hinata, who was despairing about spending time with Odin for a week, who he still barely knew. Then he spotted Leo in the crowd, standing with a woman with an imposing figure and also a little girl who looked a lot like him.

"Leo!" He couldn't help but call his friend's name, and Leo's head snapped round immediately. His face split into a rare smile- Takumi had missed that grin so much- and he ran over. Just like when Leo had left, Takumi thought that he was going to be hugged, but Leo stopped short and once again awkwardly offered his hand.

"It seems you saw me first," Leo said, and he smiled again. "It's nice to see you again, Takumi."

"Are you Takooomi?" The girl who looked like Leo ran towards them, dodging between tired teenagers. This must be Elise, and he didn't have the heart to pronounce her name wrong. She was only little.

"Yes, I'm Takumi," he said, enunciating his name clearly for her as he bent down to say hello. "And you're Elise, right? Leo's said a lot about you." The little girl nodded, grinning happily and then hugging him as if they'd known each other for years. Well, Leo's little sister was certainly less shy than his own, even though that was so not difficult that he'd be surprised if she was more shy.

"Come on Elise, he's probably very tired," Leo's voice was soft in a way that Takumi had never heard it be before, except maybe when he was talking to Elise on the phone. It was cute.

"Sorry, Leo." She backed away from Takumi, going back to stand with the purple-haired woman who Takumi thought had to be Leo's older sister, Camilla. She was wearing a friendly smile, despite looking really quite intimidating.

"Now we've all said hello, would you like to come home with us?" She asked, and Takumi caught a slight cringe from Leo. He was probably embarrassed about something or other. "Father is out, I believe, but he didn't say he wanted to meet you."

"Um, alright. Thank you." Takumi followed Leo's sisters out of the school playground with Leo at his side. The presence of Camilla was making him feel awkward- she looked like the sort of person to threaten him if he did anything wrong around Leo.

He looked over his shoulder once more to see Hinata standing very awkwardly with his luggage while Odin gestured wildly, apparently doing introductions. Takumi couldn't help but feel sorry for his friend, it obviously took a unique sort of patience to deal with the boy.

"I feel sorry for your friend," Leo said quietly, a slight smile on his lips. "It isn't easy to deal with Odin at the best of times, and especially not when you don't speak his language."

"Odin speaks in big words," Elise chipped in, sounding like she was trying to sound well informed. "Camilla doesn't like him, she says he's a silly boy."

"He is," Camilla said. "He doesn't make friends so much as adopt them when he thinks they can't refuse."

"Camilla doesn't like either of my friends," Leo added. "She objects to Niles because he taught Elise a dirty joke when she was eight." His smile widened a little, as if the memory amused him, and Takumi felt an odd sort of clenching in his chest.

"I don't see why you picked such bad influences for your friends," Camilla said, and Takumi was reminded of when Leo told him that he didn't pick Niles and Odin, they just picked him because they thought he needed more friends.

"They're nice people, honestly," Leo insisted. He glanced sideways at Takumi, mouthing 'sometimes, at least', and Takumi fought to hold back a grin. It was nice to be the one that Leo shared jokes with.

"If you say so, dear," she said, leading them to the car and opening the boot for Takumi's luggage. Takumi was hit with the smell of dog, presumably Robin, the puppy that Elise had 'found on the way home from school'.

"Sorry about the dog smell," Leo said. "It's everywhere at home, except upstairs. We'll be safe from it in my room." Takumi nodded. He wanted to spend a lot of time in Leo's room. Playing chess, obviously, but really any time he got to spend with Leo was good time.

"Don't worry about it, I like dogs," he said. He'd seen a few pictures of the 'puppy', and he thought that Robin was a little closer to a yeti than a puppy. He was all the way up to Leo's knees, and he wasn't exactly a slight dog. Leo said he was a Labrador with something else big in him.

"Good," Leo said as they got out of the car in front of a fairly large house. "Because in about five seconds, he's going to be jumping on you. Robin loves new people."

"Robin loves everyone!" Elise said, running between the car and the door and back to Takumi again to get him to hurry up. "Except daddy, but daddy doesn't really like Robin either."

Takumi just nodded at her words, worry still flickering in his stomach. He really did not want to meet Leo's father. Leo walked ahead of him and opened the door, and there was about half a second's peace before Takumi heard barking and suddenly a very large dog with pale fur jumped out of the front door and almost knocked him over. "Oof! Ah, hello, Robin." He awkwardly patted the dog on the neck as he did his best to move his body around so much that it twisted him in knots. He wasn't sure if Robin was trying to lean on him or trip him up, honestly.

"Robin! Marche arrière!" Takumi looked up as Camilla called to the dog, frowning. That wasn't any German he'd ever heard before. A slight creeping sense of deja vu prickled at his spine- he recalled Leo looking confused at Sakura's Japanese greeting, and then he remembered Leo's subtle hint a while ago that maybe things at his house wouldn't be quite as Takumi was expecting.

"You didn't," he said, looking over at Leo, who was doubled over in silent laughter all of a sudden.

"Je fait," Leo said, his voice full of laughter that sort of made Takumi just want to kiss him, honestly, even though he was closer to killing him at the moment, because apparently he's goddamn French.

"I cannot believe you," Takumi said, still shaking his head in disbelief. Leo just grinned smugly, beckoning for Takumi to follow him inside.

Leo's house was sort of dark inside. It smelled like dog and also like old things, a smell Takumi had previously associated only with museums.

"Is there a problem here, boys?" Camilla asked, a look of amusement on her face.

"Leo didn't tell me you spoke French," Takumi grumbled. He could not believe this. How did Leo not tell him? How did he not guess?

"You didn't tell me you spoke Japanese, stupide." Now Takumi did want to just quietly murder his friend. He may not speak French, but he knew the word for stupid when he heard it.

"That's different," he grumbled, knowing full well that it wasn't even the slightest bit different. He followed Leo upstairs, where the smell of dog faded quite considerably.

Leo's room was large than his own, and instead of just a mattress on the floor, there was a proper camping bed that looked decently comfortable. "Stop complaining and get settled in," he said in a voice that Takumi thought sounded almost fond.

"Yes sir," he said, grinning, and put his suitcase down. He felt sort of bad, now, that he'd left Leo to sleep on the floor on what would have been quite an old mattress when Leo had given him a camping bed to sleep on.

He could have sworn that his words caused Leo to blush ever so slightly, but that must have been his imagination. Flopping down on the camping bed, Takumi took a moment to look around Leo's room. Books everywhere, stacked neatly on shelves and on the floor alike, and a small table on the corner with a chess set already arranged on it.

Leo caught where Takumi's gaze was directed and grinned, heading over to the table. "I set this up earlier, since I knew you were coming."

"Do you want to play now?" He asked. He missed playing chess with Leo in real life and not just online. They'd experimented with playing with two different boards over a video call or giving directions to the pieces over text, but it just wasn't the same.

"Yes please," Leo said, pulling out a chair and gesturing for Takumi to sit down in front of the white pieces. "Ladies first."

Takumi was tempted to smack Leo in the face with his ponytail, but he resisted the temptation and merely sat down opposite his opponent. He tried to look as intelligent and strategic as possible before resorting to resting his face on one hand and chewing on one of his fingernails as he contemplated the best first move to make.

He lost, of course, but he didn't mind. He could never mind about losing to Leo, because they were best friends and Leo wasn't too much of a smarmy dick about losing.

Also, Takumi could never mind about losing to Leo because he had a huge crush on him.


	9. Chapter 9

Takumi didn't get much sleep that night. Maybe it was because he wasn't in his own bed, or maybe it was because Leo was about two metres away and he could hear his slow breathing as he slept and see the tufts of blond hair that stuck out above his blankets, and that was a sight that was just too cute to resist watching. He eventually managed to snatch a few hours of rest, although it felt like he was woken almost immediately after shutting his eyes by Leo shaking him gently.

"Bon matin," Leo said softly. "It's morning, perdant."

"What does that even mean..." Takumi asked, groaning softly. It was way too early for Leo's French bullshit.

"It means good morning," Leo was grinning that smug little grin of his and Takumi hated and loved him in equal measure.

"I know what good morning means, I meant the other thing..." To that, Leo just shook his head and pulled Takumi out of bed. His grip lingered on Takumi's arm for maybe a second longer than was necessary.

"Your hair is quite impressive in the morning," Leo remarked. "You might want to get ready, I'm taking you around the city today. I hope you don't mind walking- Camilla needs the car for something else. And Elise is going to see a friend of hers, so it'll just be the two of us." Takumi felt like that shouldn't have made him so excited, but it did. He glared at Leo for the insult, though, and tried to draw one hand through the length of his hair without breaking eye contact. Tried being the key word there, because he didn't remember a time when his hair was thin enough that he could actually run his fingers through it.

"What is there to see around here?" Takumi's view of the history of cities was that the mostly seemed to be full of very boring monuments. They probably wouldn't be so boring if Leo was telling him about them, though. That excited voice of his could make it interesting to watch paint dry, so long as he spoke about how cool the science was of how things dried.

"So much!" And there was Leo's excited voice. "There's the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag and the memorial stones and so many museums and places to go all the time. We could go to the old airport too, if you wanted, but we can't go in or anything, it's closed."

"I'll just let you take the lead," Takumi said, laughing. Leo continued to tell him about Germany as the two of them ate breakfast, Leo's father still mysteriously absent. Not that Takumi minded that- he'd be happy if Leo's father stayed absent for the whole week. He hadn't been at dinner last night, and he hadn't even heard the door open or Robin bark, so it was likely that he hadn't been in at all.

"Also, Camilla said we have to take Robin for a walk, so we're going to a park with him," Leo said. It seemed a little strange to be left the chore of walking the dog, but Takumi didn't mind. He loved dogs, they just didn't have the money or space for one at home.

Walking Robin turned out to be a harder task than Takumi had thought. Leo seemed to be struggling greatly with the dog's lead, occasionally calling things in French to him that probably meant something along the lines of 'slow down, you big lump'.

Near the park, Leo turned to Takumi with an exhausted expression and pushed the lead into his hand, rubbing at his own sore shoulder. Takumi didn't have time to protest before Robin took advantage of suddenly having a confused new person holding his lead and shot off at about fifty miles an hour, nearly wrenching Takumi's arm from its socket.

"When can we let him off?" Takumi asked, slightly panicked at the extreme pain currently running up his arm. "He's fast and pretty strong, is he smart enough to stay away from the road?"

"We have to wait until the park," Leo said, still sadly rubbing his shoulder.

Takumi sighed, gripping onto the lead with both hands and following Robin along the road to the park. He certainly seemed to know where he was going. It wasn't too long until they reached the park, where Takumi bent down to unclip the lead and watched as Robin bounded off to go and bother some smaller dogs.

"Is your arm alright?" Leo seemed to appear out of nowhere directly behind Takumi, making him jump about ten feet in the air. "Sorry. I didn't feel like running after him, and you seemed to be doing just fine." He rested his hands on Takumi's shoulder, squeezing it gently. "Nothing seems to be broken, so you were definitely doing fine."

"Is it common to break something walking him?" Takumi asked warily, watching Robin as he jumped around, possibly almost breaking some very small dogs who had found themselves in his path of destruction. Leo didn't answer. "Leo?"

"I broke my collar bone the first time I walked him on my own," he admitted.

"And you just gave me the lead without any warning?" Takumi turned around, only just now realising that Leo's hands had still been resting on his shoulder. "Were you trying to kill me? I'm pretty sure friends aren't supposed to try and kill each other, Leo."

"No, no!" Leo looked away very quickly and dropped his hands back to his sides. "That was months ago, Robin doesn't pull nearly as hard anymore. Aren't your arms strong from archery anyway?"

"That still doesn't excuse you," Takumi said, pouting in a way he hoped looked indignant. Leo looked like he wanted to say something else, but he just shoved Takumi playfully and looked away. Takumi could have sworn that his ears were red at the tips. "Shove me like you mean it," he said, laughing and pushing him back.

"Fine," Leo said, pushing him only a tiny bit harder. "I suppose that if I knock you over, mignonne, your hair will cushion you."

"What did you call me?" Takumi frowned, once again irritated by Leo's insistence on teasing him with French words. Although, he supposed it was only fair after what he'd done to Leo when he'd come to stay. He'd almost constantly called Leo various sickening petnames in Japanese because it was funny. Hinata and Oboro thought it was absolutely hilarious.

"De rien!" Leo said, grinning the smug grin that Takumi still sort of hated. "That means it doesn't matter."

"It does..." He groaned and shoved Leo again, who stumbled slightly, still laughing.

"It doesn't. You wouldn't want to know what I called you anyway, it's far too much for your delicate ears to hear."

"I hate you," said Takumi, with absolutely no venom behind the words.

"Good," Leo said, and then he leaned forward, kissed Takumi's cheek, and shoved him so he fell over into a puddle.

Takumi was too busy spluttering to even really register what had just happened. His ponytail was wet and slightly muddy, and his face was burning so hot that Leo could probably feel it from where he was standing above Takumi and grinning. "Are you just going to sit in that puddle all day?"

"Yes, and then you won't get to show me half the museums in Berlin," he said, trying desperately to maintain some form of dignity while he was sitting in the puddle. He could see Robin coming closer, which was probably a bad thing too.

"In that case, I'll just have to attach you to Robin's lead and drag you around," Leo countered. "Speaking of Robin, I'd say you have about five seconds to stand up before he licks you in the face."

Takumi hurriedly scrambled to his feet, only to be nearly knocked over again by a very excited and now slightly wet dog. "Who's a good boy?" He said, tentatively patting the very excited dog on the head. Robin proceeded to rub himself against his legs, leaving even more wet and muddy marks on his trousers.

"He'll leave us alone again soon," Leo said, laughing. True to his word, Robin soon spotted something else to bother and shot off again, leaving the two of them standing just a little awkwardly opposite each other with the feeling that there was something that very much needed discussing between them.

"You kissed me," Takumi said quickly, immediately regretting it. He did not need to point that out. It was a distraction, nothing more! Leo had made that pretty clear by pushing him into the puddle.

"I did," was all Leo said, standing perfectly casually with his hands behind his back and a small smile on his face. "What are you going to do about it, chérie?"

Takumi did the billionth stupid thing for that day and decided that if Leo was smiling smugly like that, he definitely deserved to be kissed and have that smile wiped off his face. It was awkward and the first time he'd kissed anyone. He didn't know how to kiss at all, and he was sure that Leo was going to make fun of him for it, at least if he didn't yell at him and tell him to fuck off, but he kissed him anyway.

Leo didn't even seem surprised- Takumi wondered to himself if he'd been INTENDING to be kissed. Instead, he reached up to run his hands through Takumi's hair, having the nerve to mess up his ponytail. Honestly. He couldn't believe this- not any part of this situation, it was all far too impossible to be real.

"Um," he said, with his usual flair and intelligence when they broke apart. "Took us long enough, right?"

Leo just laughed, and it was the best thing Takumi had heard in all his life.


End file.
